Our mission is to promote reading and improve literacy in Indiana County and surrounding areas. To accomplish this goal, we have formed a liaison with the Indiana Regional Medical Center. A self-produced video, entitled Sowing Seeds for Success, and informational brochures highlighting the benefits of reading to children are made available to all parents whose babies are born at the Indiana Regional Medical Center. Before the parent and newborn are discharged from the maternity ward, each family is given a copy of My Shining Star, a children’s story written by award winning author Rosemary Wells. Parents are also given the opportunity to receive a free one year subscription to Babybug, a looking /listening magazine for infants and toddlers.

History

Literacy Links for Little Ones, Inc. began in 2008 when a group of three seasoned educators noticed the difference between students who start school with a wealth of literature experiences and those who do not. It was agreed that students who enter school with a rich literature and language background experience the most success. Conversely, children who have had little exposure to such experiences lack language development and spend their school career playing “catch up”, often requiring remediation and intervention. As a way of addressing this problem, these teachers decided to form an organization that would not only educate parents about the importance of reading aloud to children but also provide quality literature that could be used to foster a lifelong love of reading.

Membership

Literacy Links for Little Ones, Inc. now consists of ten veteran teachers, all of whom have extensive experience in the regular classroom and/or intervention setting. After years of elementary classroom experience, one member is now teaching at the university level, preparing young adults for a profession in the teaching field.

Committed to promoting literacy by encouraging parents to read to their newborn babies to develop early language and literacy skills

Indiana Gazette Article -

click here to read more about Literacy Links for Little Ones in the local newspaper.

photo - Keith Boyer/IUP

In addition to many funding sources, Literacy Links for Little Ones, Inc. members would like to thank Lori Hennessey, Unit Manager at the Indiana Regional Medical Center and Rhonda Stever, Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner at the OB GYN Care Center, as well as the staff of the IRMC maternity ward and OB GYN Care Center for their valuable assistance in reaching this goal.

​We are proud to announce that recently Literacy Links for Little Ones, Inc. reached a milestone by providing their 1,000th Babybug subscription to Carolyn Ludwig and her growing family.